Fat (Short Story)

Hindol grew tired of roses. The big red Avons had begun to appear with such terrifying regularity, accompanied by flirtatious scribbles, in his wife Sulagna’s dresser or in the cavernous darkness of her vanity bag, that he had begun to dread. He now detested their scent and their brownish dusty remains that reminded him of crushed butterflies.

This was August. Their marriage was not even two summers old. Sulagna was an attractive woman with rouged cheeks rising smoothly on carefully sculpted cheekbones, a frame that could jack-up the bottomline of even less talented designers and eyes that played magic with kohl. They had been in love. Yet, days into their conjugal life his peace had begun to get sapped.

`What are those roses for?’ he asked her one day finding it difficult to carry on tolerating their appearance and persistence in their private space.

`Those are gifts from a friend.’

And a few difficult months went on like that when suddenly the roses transformed into women’s underwear. They popped up by the dozens in the wardrobe, dangling from the clotheshorse, in lace or some gauzy material, black, pink or in rainbow stripes. The Playboy rabbit was embossed on some while others were too tiny to dry a teardrop.

Hindol was flabbergasted; he knew she was not buying these. He secretly looked through her things for the roses, but they had vanished.

`Can I ask you something, Sulagna?’

`Shoot,’ she almost spat back, applying mascara with concentration.

`No, I mean, is it some new bloke, I mean all these…uh…garments…’

`You mean the undies,’ she fixed her stare on him, `why don’t you concentrate on your business and stop snooping.’

`What do you mean, I am married to you, I can get you packed off to the cooler for adultery!’ he was about to snap back, but he kept quiet. Many emotions crossed his mind. Sadness and hurt flooded him and their heaviness weighed him down before a mad rage began to hiss deep inside. But then there was a teardrop at the corner of his eye. He loved her still.

Yet the new man in his wife’s life did not stop courting her in his special way. And she remained nonchalant to his sorrow or that sudden teardrop.

Two months into their marriage, that was preceeded with a long (and lazy, complained Sulagna) courtship, she had started to show the first fault lines. Little cracks at first but soon it was a gift from a lover, carelessly left on the dresser, a hush, and a grey demon crouching between them at night. He knew he was losing her.

Hindol tried to concentrate on his food processing business, focusing on things like pickles and mayonnaise sauce, but it was not easy.

`Why don’t you two, take a holiday,’ a friend suggested but when Hindol mentioned this to Sulagna, she said,

`Why don’t you go with your friends,’ turned her back and continued a whispery phone conversation. He didn’t raise it again.

But now with the underwear-man stepping in, things were really going a bit too far for Hindol. First it was the sheer brazenness of the idea, the unabashed associations of the gifts and her lack of concern. Then there was the final ebbing away of her love and what it left behind - not wet sand, nor tired beaches but a scorching desert. It singed his pride, it mashed his ego to paste, it drove him mad.

He was trying to get some sleep that night and his wife had been late as usual. When it passed midnight he decided not to call her. For a new thought was keeping him awake…he will again have his soft wet sand, the dancing waves would be back, he would walk again, he and Sulagna, twirling around a fire, holding hands and together…

A week later, early in the morning as she was getting ready for office, he cat footed into the kitchen and carefully poured two tablespoons of an appetizer into her bowl of soup. Then he shook in some more black pepper and a little more salt to mask the smell of the medicine.

She sipped her soup thoughtfully, looked up at him for once and continued with her breakfast.

`Too much salt in this,’ she said suddenly, not expecting an answer. It was like that nowadays, when with him, she spoke to the wind.

Hindol did the cooking at home. `Maybe it’s the butter, they add too much salt in it these days,’ he merrily lied. Breakfast was over and after having checked her figure many times in the mirror (she was wearing a new pair of jeans) she was off. The day passed quietly.

Next morning she didn’t complain about the salt in her soup but took an extra helping of boiled potatoes with the rice. Hindol was pleased. At lunchtime she called him,

`You can be a bit more liberal with the cheese for my sandwiches.’

`Oh, I am so sorry, surely’

She hung up.

And a day later when her call came, again at lunchtime, `Is there no butter at home? I feel you are getting stingier by the day,’ to which Hindol mumbled an apology and agreed to take care.

A month went by.

They were buying cheese and butter by the kilos now and Hindol spent his culinary talents doing new things with cheese and rashers of ham, with mashed potatoes and sauce tartare. Some time later she developed an attachment for beer. That was also a trick of his and the secret doses of Periactin – the appetizer – in her diet worked extra miles with the beer around.

It did not take much longer for Hindol to find his plans beginning to work. The results took real shape before his eyes in the form of his happily ballooning wife. She slept longer and in his eyes she transformed to a lovable teddy bear. Her finely sculpted cheeks bloomed into plump juicy apples, her hips grew heavy, she had to get a new size of pants.

`Am I putting on weight, Hindol?’ she asked him one day, a dash of a concern in her voice.

`No, you look lovely mi-dear,’ he said lovingly. He didn’t mind; to him this was just a new avatar, a jumbo-size manifestation of a soul that he sometimes felt he loved more than his own, `you seem to be charged with life,’ he gurgled and the secretly administered regimen of appetizer continued.

Hindol was looking forward to much more. He hoped those results will be trickling in soon and with it his stolen happiness will be returned him. `All those half-wits she goes around with, I know what you are after,’ he had told himself, `just let me make her a bit ugly to your eyes, you blinkered packhorses and let me see you fly.’

`It seems I am winning,’ he congratulated himself, soon, when the lingerie gifts had stopped coming. There were hiccups though like when months later, guiltily rummaging through her wardrobe, he discovered a new and expensive lycra bikini top with the slogan `You catch my imagination’ blazing across the bust.

`Ouch! the blighter, is back,’ Hindol whispered to himself in despair. But neither underwear-man nor rose-man ever really returned. Soon there was one unbroken month of quiet happiness for him and his 14 stone darling. The Periactin had been at work for more than a year.

A sunny autumn arrived. The city was getting ready to celebrate the biggest of its annual festivals – Durga Puja. There had been no sign of her suitors for months and he was turning over a thought in his mind - should he ask her for a holiday? And it was also high time he started using some advice of Dr Atkins. The ideas of the slim diet guru were an assurance, though not entirely necessary, `I am not like underwear-man or rose-man,’ he chided himself. He coughed, straightened an imaginary crease of his pyjama-top, a sweet October breeze brought the scent of far off flowers to the lost lovers,

`Darling, perhaps we can go on a holiday this Puja. There’s this nice beach resort in the South…it has been such a long time.’

Sulagna smiled and her plump face looked puffier. He thought there was suddenly a flash of guilt across that face, but she didn’t look into his eyes as she spoke,

`Hindol, I had to tell you this, I was just not sure how and when. It didn’t work out for us…I am leaving you,’ she halted, waddled to the edge of the verandah and her face was hidden in a shadow now, `his name is Patrick, he is the Asian weightlifting champion, gold medal, 1999; he says he can’t take his eyes off me. We have been seeing each other for a year. I thought you had guessed. Anyway…thank you for the beer and that extra salt.’

(All rights reserved by author. First published in Sulekha)